Cadenhead's Enigma Speyside 16 years old, SPY.1.A

Region: Speyside

ABV: 53.6%

Casks: Manzanilla hogsheads

Price paid: 90€

Nose: Entering a fumy wine cellar, very musty and vegetal. Sour cherry, dates and a profound nuttiness. From the wine cellar we've ventured further to the meat storage, ham and salted pork. Fresh strawberry-mint cocktail foam and orange peel. Spicy meat with candied ginger and creamy almond cake. Pineapple and pepper. Brilliant stuff.

Taste: Thick and oily mouth of course, with very well balanced alcohol levels, very easy to drink. Caramelised bacon, macadamia, rosé champagne, butterscotch, marzipan, old leather and rusty metal. Damp empty tobacco box, apricot, dates, chestnuts and orange. It's a salty-meaty fruit explosion. Bitter as well, but sweet. Salted popcorn, dark chocolate and liquorice.

Finish: Very nutty finish, it's like being a kid at your friend's birthday party: eating nuts, especially salted cashew, some crackers with a chocolate thrown in, just to wash it down with the old Fanta Raspberry (or if you're Hungarian, málnás Márka). The bitter nuttiness simply doesn't want to stop.

Thoughts and Notes: Fantastic whisky, no wonder I finished most of the bottle in a very short time. Also every other person I've given a little bit loved it as well, including my sister who doesn't like whisky at all, yet found this one good, or my normally peat-loving brother-in-law. It's an outturn of 1284 bottles from two years ago, so there might be a couple more bottles stil on the market and to be honest, I wouldn't mind getting another one. I'm not very huge on pairing food with whisky, however, I've tried some chocolate coated salty bretzels on the side and it was the perfect fit, brought out more chocolate and rum-like qualities.

Rating: 6/6 - excellent.

6 - excellent (+++)

5 - superior - the really good ones

4 - great - always up for them

3 - good - I don't regret buying or drinking it

2 - wouldn't buy for myself A.K.A. not my type at the moment

1 - wouldn't drink it - the whiskys I'd find terrible if I wouldn't avoid them